Digital certificates are widely used in computing technology for person authentication, encryption, secure email, and device authentication. Digital certificates (also sometimes referred to as Public Key Certificates) bind a public key or a public/private key pair to an identity, such as a user name, email address, or IP address. Numerous secure protocols, such as HTTPS and SSH use digital certificates distributed and authenticated using a public key infrastructure (PKI). One popular PKI and digital certificate format is the X.509 digital certificate.
An entity providing a PKI service to an enterprise can provide an interface to allow a system administrator to generate digital certificate profiles that can be used to create digital certificates, which can then be distributed to users or devices. However, configuring a digital certificate profile to have certain characteristics is a difficult and time consuming task requiring significant expertise.